Teaching English Yields A World Of Rewards
Patty Price of Hampton volunteers with Refugee and Immigration Services to provide English instruction for non-native speakers. A retired social worker, she has also volunteered with the Big Brothers/Big Sisters program.
Recently asked about just how her volunteering has challenged her, she responded
“Teaching English as a second language to an immigrant involves so much more than just learning the basics of grammar, vocabulary and phonics. It’s also a challenge in cultural indoctrination. My first student was a Somali mother of six young children. She had lived much of her adult life in a refugee camp in East Africa and had never attended school as a child in her village. I found it extremely difficult to relate an English word from our most basic American cultural usage to anything she could associate with in her life experiences. Fortunately, most of her children were enrolled in language and cultural diversity classes in the public schools and they helped their mom to grasp many of the more confusing words. I always appreciated it when they were close by during our lesson times and could aid her understanding.”
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